Using intestines as sausage casings

Alison Thomas

pollinator

Posts: 933

Location: France

9

posted 6 years ago

Has anyone ever done this? It seemed easier than I now believe it is (how typical in life). The information sources said to wash the guts thoroughly but now I'm led to believe that you have to 'scrape' them. What on earth does that mean? They seem very fragile and keep breaking. Apparently when they're salted for preservation they get strong but the scraping is supposed to happen before that. Does anyone have a link to a video on the subject? It seems like a cop out to go and buy casings and just dump our pig's intestines.

But it is not written clearly, because it says to scrape to remove the serosa, which is the outer layer of the intestine. Seems like the outer layer is what you're trying to save! Personally, I would remove the fat and slime by careful trimming, slight scraping, and washing. If you can turn them inside out to clean, that might be good. But I have not actually done this, so this is just my initial impulse.

Salting seems like an important step to get them really clean.

Idle dreamer

rose macaskie

Posts: 2134

1

posted 6 years ago

I have just looked sausages up on -you tube- whatching people make sausages has made me feel a bit sick as whatching the dirty jobs man help to make slops for pigs out of food we leave on the sides of our platees did a day or two ago some bits of farming get more messy than even I like. The video that shows how to clean the intestines best was an Amerian video called -home made italian sausage-. The man in the video leaves the intestines to soak a bit in water, in a spanish video of making chorizo, they advised soaking in water and a bit of vinegar, and then put the end of the intestine over a funnel end and poured water into the intestine through the funnel and washed the water through the intestin. He did not spend hours washing water through though, it was one quick wash through. In the Spanish videos ladies were washing the intestines with their hands, in old saucepans full of water. They appeared to be rubbing them gently with the pads of their fingers, they were not scraping them. Maybe they were coaxing water into one end of the sausage and then pushing the bubble of water through the skin till it came out the other end. There was a video of one man attaching the skin to the end of the tap and running water through the skin from the tap. I whatched a man with an enormouse pile of intestines pull out first one long skin and then another untill all had been pulled out from the big pile of intestines and set out in a line more or less, prior to cleaning i suppose. The comment on one video is that it is normal to buy the intestines cleaned and dried, which only need soaking. Maybe more normal here were they still, though less and less, kill their own pig and make hams and sausages and blood pudding and salt back fat deliciouse for pates i suppose pates are gourmet junk food. Modern day pigs are a bit lean though. I whatched these videos if you put in to you tube the the first phrase in Spanish the others come up. the videos are demonstrations of sausage making more than explainations so you can whatch them though they are in Spanish. The word chorizo is the word for the Spanish sausage or salami flavored with usually mild chilli powder. here are the spanish titles that give you a lot of sausage making videos some of which are south American.como se hacen chorizos. como prepara longaniza. Como hacer chorizo.Chorizo casero cesareliseo. This is the video with The person who used a plastic bottle to stuff the meat into the skins with . processo amarre de tripas.

They are worth whatching though you don't speak Spanish. They more show what they are doing than explain it and they show some pretty authentic and not very rich people bits of life so you see life through them.. Of course sauchage making is a moment for dirty jokes or embarased moans from one grandmother about how embarrassing the process was. I remember an Andalucian friend of mine saying her mother would not let her into the room were the women were making sausages but she would listen from the stairs and hear them say things like, "then i just tweak him like this", him being their husband so it was a perfectly legal tweak.. One of the videos has a usefull trick for those who don't have a machine for speezing sausage meat into skins. The man used a plastic squash bottle, say a family sized coca cola bottle with the bottom chopped off it. He put the sausage skin over the bottle neck and the sausage meat into the bottom of the bottle and pushed it through into the sausage case with his fist.

Leif Kravis

Posts: 78

Location: Toronto Canada

posted 6 years ago

yes as ludi said the best way is to turn them inside out then scrape off mucus etc with a dull paring knife, use a hose or tap to turn them inside out after they have been rinsed well. i usually just buy em cleaned and salted at my butcher's. and i have a beautiful batch of spicy smoked paprika Chorizo drying on rods in my pantry another week or so and they will be ready,I'm so looking forward to them.